Poverty Row Leading Men
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Buster Crabbe graduated from the University of Southern California. In 1931, while working on That's My Boy (1932) for Columbia Pictures, he was tested by MGM for Tarzan and rejected. Paramount Pictures put him in King of the Jungle (1933) as Kaspa, the Lion Man (after a book of that title but clearly a copy of the Tarzan stories). Publicity for this film emphasized his having won the 1932 Olympic 400-meter freestyle swimming championship and suggested a rivalry with Johnny Weissmuller. Producer Sol Lesser wanted Crabbe for an independent Tarzan the Fearless (1933), though he first had to get James Pierce to waive rights to the part already promised to him by his father-in-law, Edgar Rice Burroughs. The film was released as both a feature and a serial; most houses showed only the first serial episode, which critics panned as a badly organized feature. Just prior to the film's release, Crabbe married his college sweetheart and gave himself one year to either make it as an actor or start law school at USC. Paramount put him in a number of Zane Grey westerns, then Universal Pictures gave him the lead in very successful sci-fi serials (Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers) from 1936 to 1940. In 1940, he began a string of Billy the Kid westerns for low-budget (very low-budget) studio PRC. After World War II, he devoted much of his time to his swimming pool corporation and operation of a boys' camp in New York. In 1950, he made the serials Pirates of the High Seas (1950) and King of the Congo (1952). In addition, he was very active on television in the 1950s. In 1953, he hosted a local show in New York City that featured his serials. He played the title role in the adventure series Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion (1955). During television's "Golden Age", he had several "meaty" lead roles on such weekly anthology series as "Kraft Theater" ("Million Dollar Rookie") and "Philco Television Playhouse" ("Cowboy for Chris") He later returned to western features to play Wyatt Earp in Badman's Country (1958) and gave a stellar performance. Buster Crabbe died at age 75 of a heart attack on April 23, 1983.- Actor
- Producer
- Art Department
John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Iowa, to Mary Alberta (Brown) and Clyde Leonard Morrison, a pharmacist. He was of English, Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and Irish ancestry.
Clyde developed a lung condition that required him to move his family from Iowa to the warmer climate of southern California, where they tried ranching in the Mojave Desert. Until the ranch failed, Marion and his younger brother Robert E. Morrison swam in an irrigation ditch and rode a horse to school. When the ranch failed, the family moved to Glendale, California, where Marion delivered medicines for his father, sold newspapers and had an Airedale dog named "Duke" (the source of his own nickname). He did well at school both academically and in football. When he narrowly failed admission to Annapolis he went to USC on a football scholarship 1925-7. Tom Mix got him a summer job as a prop man in exchange for football tickets. On the set he became close friends with director John Ford for whom, among others, he began doing bit parts, some billed as John Wayne. His first featured film was Men Without Women (1930). After more than 70 low-budget westerns and adventures, mostly routine, Wayne's career was stuck in a rut until Ford cast him in Stagecoach (1939), the movie that made him a star. He appeared in nearly 250 movies, many of epic proportions. From 1942-43 he was in a radio series, "The Three Sheets to the Wind", and in 1944 he helped found the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a Conservative political organization, later becoming its President. His conservative political stance was also reflected in The Alamo (1960), which he produced, directed and starred in. His patriotic stand was enshrined in The Green Berets (1968) which he co-directed and starred in. Over the years Wayne was beset with health problems. In September 1964 he had a cancerous left lung removed; in 1977 when Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope was being made, John Waynes archive voice was used for the character Garindan ezz Zavor, later in March 1978 there was heart valve replacement surgery; and in January 1979 his stomach was removed. He received the Best Actor nomination for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and finally got the Oscar for his role as one-eyed Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (1969). A Congressional Gold Medal was struck in his honor in 1979. He is perhaps best remembered for his parts in Ford's cavalry trilogy - Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950).- Actor
- Soundtrack
An All-American halfback while attending the University of Alabama, Johnny Mack Brown chose the silver screen over the green grass of the football field when he graduated. Signed to a contract with MGM in 1926, Brown debuted in Slide, Kelly, Slide (1927) with William Haines in a film about - baseball. This was followed by The Bugle Call (1927), which starred the fading Jackie Coogan. In 1928 he appeared in the last Norma Shearer silent film, A Lady of Chance (1928). After that, he worked with Greta Garbo, Marion Davies and Mary Pickford. His muscular good looks only carried him so far in films, however, and by 1930 he had yet to find his place. At MGM Clark Gable was taking the roles that Brown was up for, so he went into a western for director King Vidor, Billy the Kid (1930). While Vidor did not want him for the part to begin with, the picture was successful; however, Brown's career at MGM soon ended. By 1933 he was still making westerns, but they were for low-rung studios like Mascot. More westerns at even lower-rung Supreme Pictures followed, as well as serials like Wild West Days (1937) at Universal. In 1943 Brown took his boots over to Monogram Pictures, where he made over 60 westerns. He started off as "Nevada Jack McKenzie" in the Rough Riders series, but the name soon changed to Johnny. As with most of the early cowboy stars, he was a hero to millions of young children and consistently among the top ten money-makers in westerns from 1942-50. The bubble burst, though, just as it did for Allan Lane, in 1953, as the days of the "B" western came to an end.- The son of Colonel H.G. Toler, breeder of trotting horses, Sidney Toler acted on stage by the time he was seven years old. He was an established star of the theater by the 1890s, long before his career in motion pictures began. He was also active as a playwright and had a good enough voice to be cast as a lead baritone with an operatic stock company at the Orpheum Theatre in New York. He made his Broadway debut in 'The Office Boy' in 1903 and for the next nine years went on the road with his own touring acting troupes. His prowess as a writer equaled that of his performances with two of his plays opening on Broadway while a third ('The Man They Left Behind') was enacted by no less than eighteen different stock companies in a single week nationwide.
Frequently under the auspices of theatrical impresario David Belasco, Sidney starred in Broadway comedy for twelve years (1918-30). Having decided to abandon his successful stage career, he made the move to Hollywood and played supporting roles as a free-lance actor for several years, often cast as police officers, bankers or butlers.
In the mid-1930s, he joined 20th Century Fox under contract. The death of Charlie Chan impersonator Warner Oland in 1938 presented him with an opportunity for a leading role and he successfully auditioned for the part among 34 candidates screen-tested. His expansive, avuncular personality made Sidney, arguably, the most popular incarnation of the famous oriental detective with a noticeably strong line in sarcastic wit -- usually directed at 'Number Two Son'. He played Chan in 22 feature films beginning with Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938), and ending with The Trap (1946). The first 11 Charlie Chan outings were produced by 20th Century Fox Studios. All of them were box office hits. However, by 1942, the quality of the series began to decline. With America's entry into the Second World War, overseas markets began to dwindle. Fox retired the series, but two years later, in 1944, sold the character rights to the 'poverty row' company Monogram Pictures. This inevitably resulted in poorer scripts and lower production values.
Moreover, after years of being typecast as Charlie Chan and given few opportunities to expand his range as an actor, Sidney's performances also became less defined and more automatic. While filming the last three Charlie Chan installments (Shadows Over Chinatown (1946), Dangerous Money (1946), and The Trap (1946)), the actor became increasingly incapacitated by ill-health which resulted in extra screen time for his co-stars Mantan Moreland and Victor Sen Yung. After being bedridden for several months, he passed away at his Hollywood home from intestinal cancer on February 12, 1947 at age 72. - Actor
- Writer
Roland Winters was born on 22 November 1904 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Docks of New Orleans (1948), Blue Hawaii (1961) and The Chinese Ring (1947). He was married to Helen Lewis and Ada Carver Howe. He died on 22 October 1989 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Beaumont began his career in show business by perfoming in theatres, nightclubs, and on the radio in 1931. He attended the University of Chattanooga, but left when his position on the football team was changed. He later attended the University of Southern California, and graduated with a Master of Theology degree in 1946. He was visiting his son Hunter, a Psychology Professor in Munich, at the time of his sudden death.- Actor
- Stunts
- Soundtrack
Born into a show-business family - his parents were circus aerialists - Frankie Darro appeared in his first film at age six. Due to his small size and youthful appearance, he played teenagers well into his 20s. Always a physical performer, Darro often did his own stunts, many times out of necessity - his small stature made it difficult to find stunt doubles his size. He was an accomplished horseman and, in addition to westerns, made several films where he played jockeys. In 1933 he played the lead as a troubled teen in a major film for Warner Brothers : Wild Boys of the Road (1933). It is a pre code film with a realistic look at "The Great Depression" , from the point of view of the youth of the time. This film seems to have been rediscovered only recently and has received critical acclaim.That same year, he played a troubled youth in the James Cagney classic, "The Mayor Of Hell". Later in 1935, he had a key role in the cult serial classic' "The Phantom Empire"(1935). As Darro got older, however, he found it increasingly difficult to secure employment, and by the late 1940s was doing uncredited stunt work and bit parts. He had a recurring role on The Red Skelton Hour (1951), unrecognized by his fans, he played "Robby The Robot" in the groundbreaking sci-fi film "The Forbidden Planet" (1956), though Marvin Miller, best remembered as Michael Anthony of TVs "Millionaire"(1955-60), was the robot's voice. After that Frankie appeared sporadically in films and on TV . .- Actor
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Additional Crew
Bela Lugosi was born Béla Ferenc Dezsö Blaskó on October 20, 1882, Lugos, Hungary, Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania), to Paula de Vojnich and István Blaskó, a banker. He was the youngest of four children. During WWI, he volunteered and was commissioned as an infantry lieutenant, and was wounded three times.
A distinguished stage actor in his native Hungary, Austria-Hungary, he began his stage career in 1901 and started appearing in films during World War I, fleeing to Germany in 1919 as a result of his left-wing political activity (he organized an actors' union). In 1920 he emigrated to the US and made a living as a character actor, shooting to fame when he played Count Dracula in the legendary 1927 Broadway stage adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. It ran for three years, and was subsequently, and memorably, filmed by Tod Browning in 1931, establishing Lugosi as one of the screen's greatest personifications of pure evil. Also in 1931, he became a U.S. citizen. Sadly, his reputation rapidly declined, mainly because he had been blacklisted by the main studios and had no choice but to accept any part (and script) handed to him, and ended up playing parodies of his greatest role, in low-grade poverty row films. Due to shady blacklisting among the top Hollywood studio executives, he refused to sell out or to compromise his integrity, and therefore ended his career working for the legendary Worst Director of All Time, Edward D. Wood Jr..
Lugosi was married to Ilona Szmik (1917 - 1920), Ilona von Montagh (? - ?), and Lillian Arch (1933 - 1951). He is the father of Bela Lugosi Jr. (1938). Lugosi helped organize the Screen Actors Guild in the mid-'30s, joining as member number 28.
Bela Lugosi died of a heart attack August 16, 1956. He was buried in a Dracula costume, including a cape, but not the ones used in the 1931 film, contrary to popular--but unfounded--rumors.- Actor
- Soundtrack
John Carradine, the son of a reporter/artist and a surgeon, grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York. He attended Christ Church School and Graphic Art School, studying sculpture, and afterward roamed the South selling sketches. He made his acting debut in "Camille" in a New Orleans theatre in 1925. Arriving in Los Angeles in 1927, he worked in local theatre. He applied for a job as as scenic designer to Cecil B. DeMille, who rejected his designs but gave him voice work in several films. His on-screen debut was in Tol'able David (1930), billed as Peter Richmond. A protégé and close friend of John Barrymore, Carradine was an extremely prolific film character actor while simultaneously maintaining a stage career in classic leading roles such as Hamlet and Malvolio. In his later years he was typed as a horror star, putting in appearances in many low- and ultra-low-budget horror films. He was a member of the group of actors often used by director John Ford that became known as "The John Ford Stock Company". John Carradine died at age 82 of natural causes on November 27, 1988.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Tom Neal is best remembered for his off-screen exploits, which involved scandal, mayhem and a charge of murder. Before his 1938 screen debut in MGM's Out West with the Hardys (1938), Neal had been a member of the boxing team at Northwestern University, had debuted on the Broadway stage in 1935 and had received a law degree from Harvard, also in 1938. Throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s, he appeared mostly as tough guys in Hollywood low-budgeters. In 1951, in a dispute over the on-again / off-again affections and the wavering allegiance of notorious actress / "party girl" Barbara Payton, he mixed it up with Payton's paramour, the aristocratic actor Franchot Tone. The former college boxer Neal inflicted upon Tone a smashed cheekbone, a broken nose and a brain concussion. Hollywood essentially blackballed Neal thereafter, but he would come to find a livelihood in gardening and landscaping. He was brought to trial in 1965 for the murder of his wife Gale, who had been shot to death with a .45-caliber bullet to the back of her head. Prosecutors sought the death penalty for Neal, which at the time meant a trip to the cyanide-gas chamber. The trial jury, however, convicted him only of "involuntary manslaughter", for which he was sentenced to 10 years in jail.
On 7 December 1971 he was released on parole, having served exactly six years to the day. Eight months later, Tom Neal was dead of heart failure.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
The fresh-faced appeal and promising talent of darkly handsome "B" actor Don Castle was evident from the late 30s into the 40s, but it wasn't enough for him to reach topgrade stardom. Born Marion Goodman, Jr. in Beaumont Texas in 1918 and raised in Houston, Don enrolled at the University of Texas before heading West to California to try his luck in acting.
An agent was struck by his resemblance to a young Clark Gable and took him to MGM, who went on to sign the 20-year-old actor wannabe (young Marion had already changed his name to Don Castle). The nascent actor was groomed very slowly and started at the bottom step of the billing ladder with numerous small, often uncredited roles in such films as Young Dr. Kildare (1938), Nick Carter, Master Detective (1939), Strike Up the Band (1940), The Ghost Comes Home (1940) and I Take This Woman (1940). On a very rare occasion MGM would better feature their client in support as in the comedy Rich Man, Poor Girl (1938) which starred Robert Young and Ruth Hussey in the title roles with Don as part of Hussey's zany family, and also as Dennis Hunt in Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938), a role he played again in Out West with the Hardys (1938). Appearing in several MGM shorts but, for the most part, interest in their client quickly waned.
Paramount picked the young actor up and cast him in a smallish role in You're the One (1941), a vehicle for the then-popular jazz and popular standards singer (Wee) Bonnie Baker. His second film, the war-era drama Power Dive (1941), a loanout, finally gave Don a chance to show his potential in a second lead role as test pilot Richard Arlen's brother and rival for Jean Parker. Don also showed strong ability in Tombstone: The Town Too Tough to Die (1942) with Richard Dix playing Wyatt Earp and Don fourth billed as Johnny Duanne.
WWII interrupted his career when he was drafted into the Army Air Force. During that time he made training films for the First Motion Picture Unit. Don returned to Paramount following his 1946 discharge but little interest was shown. A small role in The Searching Wind (1946), a war drama, was all he could muster. On his own, Don finally received top billing in the "Poverty Row" programmer Lighthouse (1947) in which he and fellow lighthouse keeper (played by John Litel) vie for the affections of pretty June Lang. He then went and co-starred with Johnny Sands and Vivian Austin in the cheapjack racing yarn Born to Speed (1947).
Don forged a strong friendship with former child actress Bonita Granville after co-starring with her in the Monogram film noir The Guilty (1947), The friendship proved quite fruitful. He was then cast in the Wrather Production Company's drama High Tide (1947) with Lee Tracy and Julie Bishop and again appeared opposite Bonita in Strike It Rich (1948). Don went on to serve as "best man" when Bonita married studio head Jack Wrather in 1947.
Most of Don's lead/support parts in subsequent bargain-basement independents were equally unrewarding -- The Invisible Wall (1947), Roses Are Red (1947), Perilous Waters (1948), Madonna of the Desert (1948), Who Killed 'Doc' Robbin? (1948), I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes (1948) and Stampede (1949). He subsequently signed a three-picture contract with Lippert Productions but only one, Motor Patrol (1950), was ever filmed. When movie offers completely dried up in 1950, Don found some brief work as a guest on TV anthology programs.
During the lean years in the early 1950s, Don and his second wife, Zetta, opened Castle's Red Barn (1959) in Palm Springs which became a popular place to stay. They ran it for seven years. In 1957, he was given minor roles in the films The Big Land (1957) and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). Jack and Bonita Wrather came to Don's rescue once again when Jack made Don president of International Television Corporation. He also served as an associate producer of Wrather's classic series Lassie (1954) from 1960-1962.
Don's later years were marred by depression. Divorced from his second wife in 1962, he died from a drug overdose at the age of 47.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall was born in Herne Hill, London, to Winifriede Lucinda (Corcoran), an Irish-born aspiring actress, and Thomas Andrew McDowall, a merchant seaman of Scottish descent. Young Roddy was enrolled in elocution courses at age five. By age 10, he had appeared in his first film, Murder in the Family (1938), playing Peter Osborne, the younger brother of sisters played by Jessica Tandy and Glynis Johns.
His mother brought Roddy and his sister to the U.S. at the beginning of World War II, and he soon got the part of "Huw", the youngest child in a family of Welsh coal miners, in John Ford's How Green Was My Valley (1941), acting alongside Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara and Donald Crisp in the film that won that year's best film Oscar. He went on to many other child roles, in films like My Friend Flicka (1943) and Lassie Come Home (1943) until, at age eighteen, he moved to New York, where he played a long series of successful stage roles, both on Broadway and in such venues as Connecticut's Stratford Festival, where he did Shakespeare. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1949.
In addition to making many more movies (over 150), McDowall acted in television, developed an extensive collection of movies and Hollywood memorabilia, and published five acclaimed books of his own photography. He died at his Los Angeles home, aged 70, of cancer. He never married and had no children.- Actor
- Music Department
Johnny Weissmuller was born as Peter Johann Weißmüller in Freidorf, today a district of the city of Timisoara in Romania, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Weissmuller would later claim to have been born in Windber, Pennsylvania, probably to ensure his eligibility to compete as part of the US Olympic team. Weissmüller was one of two boys born to Petrus Weissmuller, a miner, and his wife Elisabeth Kersch, who were both Banat Swabians, an ethnic German population in Southeast Europe. A sickly child, he took up swimming on the advice of a doctor. He grew to be a 6' 3", 190-pound champion athlete - undefeated winner of five Olympic gold medals, 67 world and 52 national titles, holder of every freestyle record from 100 yards to the half-mile. In his first picture, Glorifying the American Girl (1929), he appeared as an Adonis clad only in a fig leaf. After great success with a jungle movie, MGM head Louis B. Mayer, via Irving Thalberg, optioned two of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan stories. Cyril Hume, working on the adaptation of Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), noticed Weissmuller swimming in the pool at his hotel and suggested him for the part of Tarzan. Weissmuller was under contract to BVD to model underwear and swimsuits; MGM got him released by agreeing to pose many of its female stars in BVD swimsuits. The studio billed him as "the only man in Hollywood who's natural in the flesh and can act without clothes". The film was an immediate box-office and critical hit. Seeing that he was wildly popular with girls, the studio told him to divorce his wife and paid her $10,000 to agree to it. After 1942, however, MGM had used up its options; it dropped the Tarzan series and Weissmuller, too. He then moved to RKO and made six more Tarzans. After that he made 13 Jungle Jim (1948) programmers for Columbia. He retired from movies to run a private business in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.- His father was the actor Reginald Sheffield who began as a child star and later turned to character acting. Johnny appeared at age seven on Broadway in the original cast of "On Borrowed Time". When Maureen O'Sullivan wanted out of her Jane role in the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan series, it was decided that she and Tarzan would adopt a son (they had to adopt, according to the Legion of Decency, because they weren't married) before she died. Weissmuller personally chose Sheffield for the part of Boy, a part inspired by Bobby Nelson's portrayal in Tarzan the Mighty (1928); athletic by nature, he was taught to swim by swimming Olympian Weissmuller. Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939) was such a success that MGM signed Sheffield to six more films as Tarzan's Boy. By the time of Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948), he was too big for the part; the film merely said he was away at school. When Monogram Studios learned he had been dropped, they picked him up for the series of movies based on the Roy Rockwood Bomba: The Jungle Boy (1949) movies. He made twelve of these between 1949 and 1955.
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- Additional Crew
Luis Antonio Damaso de Alonso, later known as Gilbert Roland, was born in 1905 in Mexico. Following his parents to the USA, he did not become the bullfighter he had dreamed of being but became an actor instead. His Mexican roots, his half macho half romantic ways, his handsome virile figure helped him land roles in movies from the early twenties to 1982. A long and varied career in which Roland was in turns an extra, a matinée idol (Armand Duval in Camille (1926)), a Latin Lover, a star of English-speaking films made in Hollywood in the early 1930s, a Mexican bandit in B-Movies, The Cisco Kid in a series of six popular Westerns, a brilliant character in major A movies (John Huston's We Were Strangers (1949), Vincente Minnelli's The Bad and the Beautiful (1952); Anthony Mann's Thunder Bay (1953), John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn (1964)), a sinister character in Spaghetti Westerns... When he retired in 1982, twelve years before he died, he could be satisfied. His career had spanned six decades, the coming of sound had not ended it, he had played in all kinds of movies, he had held the most beautiful women in his arms, and maybe the most important thing, he had been given the opportunity to show his acting talents. Not every actor can boast such a life achievement.- Actor
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- Producer
To most audiences, Duncan Renaldo will always be identified as film and TV's Cisco Kid. However, he began this role late in his career, and little is known about Renaldo's early life. In fact, his date and place of birth are still questioned. The birth date usually given is April 23, 1904. His birthplace has been generally stated as Spain (he has said that his first memories as a child were in Spain), although Romania and even New Jersey have been mentioned as well. An orphan, he never knew his actual parents and was never able to ascertain the exact date and place of his birth.
Duncan was raised and educated in various European countries and arrived in the US in the early 1920s as a stoker on a Brazilian coal ship. Entering the country on a 90-day seaman's permit, he stayed when his ship caught fire at the dock and burned to the waterline. A paltry existence as a portrait painter forced him to seek other work, and he somehow found his way into films as a producer of short features, which in turn led to on-camera work as an actor with MGM in 1928. The studio capitalized on his dashing Hispanic looks and initially typed him as a "Latin lover," but it didn't last long.
Following important roles in The Naughty Duchess (1928), The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929), Trader Horn (1931), he starred as Zorro in Trapped in Tia Juana (1932). In the early 1930s his career was interrupted when he was arrested and faced deportation due to his illegal immigrant status. The actor was eventually pardoned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, had bought one of Renaldo's paintings, looked into his case, and persuaded her husband to pardon him. He returned to minor films for both Republic and Monogram, alternating as heroic sidekick and villain. He co-starred as one of the Three Mesquiteers in the revamped film series and showed up regularly in 1930s and 1940s cliffhangers, including The Painted Stallion (1937), Jungle Menace (1937), Zorro Rides Again (1937), King of the Mounties (1942), Secret Service in Darkest Africa (1943) The Tiger Woman (1944).
In 1945 he began the Cisco Kid film series and transferred the character successfully to TV in the early 1950s, with Leo Carrillo as faithful sidekick Pancho. Renaldo's Cisco was clean-shaven and more of a hero than the roguish bandit created by O. Henry. Renaldo retired soon after the series' demise and died years later at Goleta Valley Community Hospital in California of lung cancer in 1980.- Freddie Stewart is known for Allied (2016), The Tragedy of Macbeth (2012) and Masters of the Air (2024).
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- Soundtrack
He was one of filmdom's last dying breed of crooning cowpokes following WWII. Jimmy Wakely had many talents (singing, songwriting, guitar-playing) and performed in many venues (radio, film, TV, rodeos, clubs) over his career. He began life in Mineola, Arkansas in 1914, but was raised in Depression-era Oklahoma. He started off simply as a farmer but his musical talents could not be denied. Eventually he created the vocal trio "The Bell Boys" along with Johnny Bond and entertained in local hot spots while cutting studio recordings. Country western lore has it that a happenstance meeting with Gene Autry while the star was touring in Oklahoma led to the vocal group high-tailing it to California and performing on his Melody Ranch radio program at CBS. The boys eventually settled in California and made their musical film debut in the Roy Rogers Republic western Saga of Death Valley (1939). Wakely's group ended up a staple on Autry's radio show as well, but Jimmy left within a couple of years to focus on films and a recording contract with Decca Records. He and his group appeared in two Hopalong Cassidy films in 1941, Twilight on the Trail (1941), and Stick to Your Guns (1941) and within the films they sang memorable songs such as Lonesome Guitar, Blue Moon on the Silver Sage, Lady O Lay, and My Kind of Country. He would become known for perfecting the hillbilly style with such classic songs as "Cimarron (Roll On)" (his first big hit), "I'm Sending You Red Roses," ""One Has My Name (The Other Has My Heart)," "Beautiful Brown Eyes," "Too Late" and "I'll Never Let You Go."
Over an extended period of time Jimmy's country trio would warble for a number of top westerns stars in their film vehicles. Known vicariously during their film stay as "Jimmy Wakely and his Rough Riders," "The Jimmy Wakely Trio," "Jimmy Wakely and his Saddle Pals" and "Jimmy Wakely and His Oklahoma Boys," the popular Dick Reinhart and Scotty Harrel often completed the trio along with Wakely and Bond. The boys traveled from studio to studio fine-tuning an assembly line of westerns for such established stars as Don 'Red' Barry, Johnny Mack Brown, Tex Ritter and Charles Starrett, among others.
Thanks to the meteoric successes of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, the various studios were competitively grooming top country singers into film icons. "Poverty Row"-level Monogram Pictures exec Scott R. Dunlap managed to snag the slim, laidback, good-looking Jimmy as their own representative. For the next five years, the dark-haired singer would star in over two dozen oaters, his character heroes usually taking on his own name -- Jimmy Wakely. Dubbed the Bing Crosby of C&W, his stay at Monogram went considerably well though certainly not up to par with the success of the afore-mentioned.
Wakely's first Monogram vehicle was Song of the Range (1944), and he rode off into the sunset five years later with Lawless Code (1949). In between he smooth-sang a lot of tunes and was outfitted with a variety of different sidekicks, notably 'Lee "Lasses" White' and Dub Taylor. Though he took a distant ranking compared to others of his ilk, he proved to be a fine commodity for the fledgling studio. His lasting power was curtailed, however, by the demise of the singing cowboy (and eventually "B" westerns in general).
Following his heyday and into the 1950s, Jimmy continued writing songs and singing on stage. He remained a sturdy name on the rodeo circuit and in country western clubs. As a recording artist he charted a few country hits and was one of the few singers to cross over to the mainstream. In 1952, he became the star of "The Jimmy Wakely Show" for CBS radio and briefly alternated hosting duties on ABC-TV's Five Star Jubilee (1961) with Snooky Lanson, Carl Smith, Rex Allen and old film pal Tex Ritter. He eventually developed his own record company called Shasta Records in the 1960s and 1970s and owned two music publishing companies. Converting part of his California homestead into a recording studio, he made commercial records for other country western artists as well. Two of his children, Linda Lee and Johnny, showed singing talents and occasionally joined him on the performing stage. Long wed to wife Inez (since 1936) who became his business manager, they had two other daughters, Carol and Deanna. Jimmy developed emphysema in later years and died in California of heart failure in 1982.- Handsome, hairy-chested Ralph Byrd had an 18 year career in Hollywood both as a leading man and as a character actor, though he is best remembered for his role as Chester Gould's comic strip detective, Dick Tracy, in several movie serials and on television (first for ABC and then in a syndicated series). During his film career he was a contract player for RKO and 20th- Fox. A serious auto accident slowed down his film career in the late 1940s, but he returned to the role of Tracy and worked steadily until his untimely death of a heart attack. His survivors were his widow, the actress Virginia Carroll, and his daughter, Carol, 13 at the time of his death.
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As a child, Kirby received a scholarship to the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. Kirby won the scholarship as a violinist and singer, but he also dabbled as a sculptor. He would play a violinist in the film, I Dream Too Much (1935), which starred Henry Fonda. While his movie career was less than spectacular, he did have the lead in a number of low- budget westerns and also played a Canadian Mountie in low-budget adventures. But it would be Television, where Kirby would gain the kind of fame that would follow him for the rest of his life. "Out of the blue of the western sky comes Sky King". Sky King (1951) was a Television series where Kirby played a wealthy gentleman rancher who used his twin engine Cessna to capture the evil ones. As everyone knows, the plane was called the "Song Bird", his ranch was "the Flying Crown Ranch", located near "Grover, Arizona", and he had a niece named Penny and a nephew named Clipper. Kirby was a lifelong flying enthusiast taught to fly by barnstormers in the 1920's. "Sky King" was a huge success and Kirby made approximately 130 episodes which guaranteed syndication. After the show ended, Kirby traveled with the Carson and Barnes Circus and retired in 1970. He later bought the title and rights to the show, Sky King (1951), and became a public relations director for Sea World in Florida.- Actor
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Along with fellow actors Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price, Boris Karloff is recognized as one of the true icons of horror cinema, and the actor most closely identified with the general public's image of the Frankenstein Monster from the classic 1818 Mary Shelley novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus". William Henry Pratt was born on November 23, 1887, in Camberwell, London, England, UK, the son of Edward John Pratt Jr., the Deputy Commissioner of Customs Salt and Opium, Northern Division, Indian Salt Revenue Service, and his third wife, Eliza Sarah Millard.
He was educated at London University in anticipation that he would pursue a diplomatic career; however, he emigrated to Canada in 1909, joined a touring company based out of Ontario and adopted the stage name of "Boris Karloff." He toured back and forth across the U.S. for over 10 years in a variety of low budget theater shows and eventually ended up in Hollywood, reportedly with very little money to his name. Needing cash to support himself, Karloff secured occasional acting work in the fledgling silent film industry in such films as The Deadlier Sex (1920), Omar the Tentmaker (1922), Dynamite Dan (1924) and Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1927), in addition to a handful of film serials (the majority of these, sadly, are all lost films). Karloff supplemented his meager film income by working as a truck driver in Los Angeles, which allowed him enough time off to continue to pursue acting roles.
His big break finally came when he was cast as the Frankenstein Monster in the Universal production of Frankenstein (1931), which was directed by James Whale, one of the studio's few remaining auteur directors. The aura of mystery surrounding Karloff was highlighted in the opening credits, as he was listed as simply "?". The film was a commercial and critical success for Universal, and Karloff was instantly established as a hot property in Hollywood. He quickly appeared in several other sinister roles, including Scarface (1932) (filmed before Frankenstein (1931)), as the black-humored The Old Dark House (1932), as the titular Chinese villain of Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu Manchu novels in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), as the living mummy Im-ho-tep in The Mummy (1932) and as the misguided Prof. Morlant in The Ghoul (1933). He thoroughly enjoyed his role as a religious fanatic in John Ford's film The Lost Patrol (1934), although contemporary critics described it as a textbook example of overacting.
He donned the signature make-up, neck bolts and asphalt spreader's boots to play the Frankenstein Monster twice more, the first time in the sensational Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and the second time in the less thrilling Son of Frankenstein (1939). Karloff, on loan to Fox, appeared in one of the best of the Warner Oland Charlie Chan films, Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936), before beginning his own short-lived detective film series as Mr. Wong. He was a wrongly condemned doctor in Devil's Island (1938), the shaven-headed executioner Mord the Merciless in Tower of London (1939), another misguided scientist in The Ape (1940), a crazed scientist surrounded by monsters, vampires and werewolves in House of Frankenstein (1944), a murderous cab-man in The Body Snatcher (1945) and a Greek general fighting vampires in the Val Lewton thriller Isle of the Dead (1945).
While Karloff continued to appear in a plethora of films, many of them were not up to the standards of his previous efforts, including his appearances in two of the hokey Bud Abbott and Lou Costello monster films (he had appeared with both of them in an earlier, superior film, Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff (1949), of which theater owners often added his name to the marquee) at the low point of the Universal-International horror film cycle. During the 1950s he was a regular guest on many high-profile TV shows, including The Milton Berle Show (1948), Tales of Tomorrow (1951), The Veil (1958), The Donald O'Connor Show (1954), The Red Skelton Hour (1951) and The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (1956), just to name a few, and he appeared in a mixed bag of films, including Sabaka (1954) and Voodoo Island (1957). On Broadway, he appeared as the murderous Jonathan Brewster in the hit play "Arsenic and Old Lace" (his role, or rather the absence of him in it, was amusingly parodied in the play's 1944 film version) and 10 years later he enjoyed a long run in another hit play, "Peter Pan," perfectly cast as Captain Hook.
His career experienced something of a revival in the 1960s thanks to hosting the TV anthology series Thriller (1960) and independent film director Roger Corman, with Karloff contributing wonderful performances in The Raven (1963), The Terror (1963), the ultra-eerie Black Sabbath (1963) and the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired Die, Monster, Die! (1965). Karloff's last great film role before his death was as Byron Orlok, an aging and bitter horror film star on the brink of retirement who confronts a modern-day sniper in the Peter Bogdanovich-directed film Targets (1968). After this, he played Professor John Marsh in The Crimson Cult (1968), in which he co-starred with Sir Christopher Lee and Barbara Steele; it was the last film that he starred in that was released in his lifetime. Before these two films, he played the blind sculptor Franz Badulescu in Cauldron of Blood (1968) which was produced, directed and written by Edward Mann, who had also come to the art of film from the stage and the theater; it was released in the U.S. in 1971 after his death. His TV career was topped off by achieving Christmas immortality as both the voices of the titular character and the narrator of Chuck Jones' perennial animated favorite, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). Four low budget horror films that were made in Mexico and starred an ailing Karloff, whose scenes for all four of them were shot on a soundstage in Hollywood, were released theatrically in Mexico in 1968 and then were released directly to television in the U.S. after his death between 1971 and 1972; however, they do no justice to this great actor. In retrospect, he never took himself too seriously as an actor and had a tendency to downplay his acting accomplishments. Renowned as a refined, kind and warm-hearted gentleman with a sincere affection for both children and their welfare, Karloff passed away on February 2, 1969 from pneumonia. Respectful of his Indian roots and in true Hindu fashion, he was cremated at Guildford Crematorium, Godalming, Surrey, England, UK, where he is commemorated by a plaque in Plot 2 of the Garden of Remembrance.- Actor
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The well-worn phrase "Tall in the saddle" is certainly one easy way of describing (and perhaps pigeon-holing) leathery, wiry-framed 1940s and early 1950s western film star Rod Cameron, although he proved quite capable in crime stories, horrors and even swing-era musicals.
The 6'4" Canadian-born actor was born Nathan Roderick Cox on December 7, 1910, and raised in Alberta. Once his aspirations of becoming a Royal Canadian Mountie passed, he decided to seek fame and fortune as an actor in New York and initially grabbed some work as a laborer on the Holland Tunnel project in Manhattan. When no progress was made acting-wise, he moved to California where he made his "debut" in an unbilled bit in one of Bette Davis' scenes in The Old Maid (1939). Upon release, however, he discovered his bit in the scene had been deleted.
Cameron found a slight "in" (as in "stand-in") with Paramount Pictures for such stars as Fred MacMurray while managing to find himself sparingly used in other Paramount films. To supplement his income he also played leading man in the studio's screen tests for starlet wanna-bes and his athleticism paid off playing stunt double for such established cowboy icons as Buck Jones. Cameron toiled as a bit player for quite some time and appeared insignificantly in such classics as Christmas in July (1940) and North West Mounted Police (1940) (where he fulfilled his early wish by playing a Mountie!). Occasionally he would find a noticeable secondary role, in such lesser films as The Monster and the Girl (1941), The Forest Rangers (1942) and as Jesse James in The Remarkable Andrew (1942).
Cameron's banner year was 1943, when he finally broke out of the minor leagues and into the major ranks. His breakout screen role was as clench-jawed Agent Rex Bennett, out to bring down the foreign enemy and save the world, in the Republic serial cliffhangers G-Men vs. The Black Dragon (1943) and Secret Service in Darkest Africa (1943). From there he was signed by Universal to appear in a flurry of low-budget westerns with Fuzzy Knight as his comic sidekick. Aside from the rough-hewn heroics he was paid to display, he would occasionally show a softer side for the ladies, such as with fellow Canadian Yvonne De Carlo in Salome, Where She Danced (1945), Frontier Gal (1945) and River Lady (1948). Seldom would he venture outside the action genre, however, one of the few times being his role as a symphony conductor in Swing Out, Sister (1945). For the most part he remained rooted in westerns and the only variance within that realm was the occasional black-hatted bad guy.
Among Cameron's many dusty showcases (more often than not made at Republic or Universal), Brimstone (1949), Stampede (1949), Dakota Lil (1950) and San Antone (1953) are worth a good look. Cameron never found his Stagecoach (1939) or Shane (1953), a vehicle that might have held him even "taller" in the saddle, but between 1953 and 1955 he was still ranked "top 5" box-office.
In the 1950s Cameron found time to settle into a couple of syndicated TV series. Both City Detective (1953) and State Trooper (1956) lasted a couple of seasons. He also guested on the more popular western series, such as Bonanza (1959), Laramie (1959) and The Virginian (1962). When his movie career began to fade in the early 1960s, he went to Spain for a few spaghetti westerns and appeared in a couple of low-budget westerns such as Requiem for a Gunfighter (1965) and The Bounty Killer (1965), which was noticed more for reuniting sagebrush stars from yesteryear than for its high quality. He also played an aging rodeo star who dies early in the story in the biopic Evel Knievel (1971).
The only serious tabloid scandal he ever found himself in was when he divorced wife Angela Alves-Lico (1950-1960) and then immediately married his ex-wife's mother, Dorothy, who was a few years older than him. An extended battle with cancer finally claimed the 73-year-old actor in 1983 at a Gainesville, Georgia, hospital.- Actor
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A stocky, friendly-faced character actor, Ford was born Samuel Jones in England, where the brutality of his childhood rivaled anything that Charles Dickens ever dreamed up. He lived for a while in an orphanage after being separated from his parents. While still young, he was sent to a Toronto branch of the orphanage. There, he began a cycle that involved living in 17 foster homes, the longest being with a farm family that treated him like a slave. At age 11 he ran away and joined a vaudeville troupe called the Winnipeg Kiddies, with whom he stayed until 1914. He then joined a friend named Wallace Ford, and the two 'hoboed" their way into the United States. After the friend was crushed to death by a railroad car, he took the name Wallace Ford in his friend's memory and found work in theatrical troupes and repertory companies. On Broadway he acted in "Abraham Lincoln," "Abie's Irish Rose," and "Bad Girl." He left Broadway in 1932 to appear with Joan Crawford in Possessed (1931); he also landed the lead in MGM's notorious Freaks (1932), although his fellow actors proved more memorable. He also co-starred as Walter Huston's amoral brother in one of the studio's few full-blown gangster melodramas, The Beast of the City (1932), starring Jean Harlow in arguably her most hard-bitten role. In all he appeared in over 200 films, including five directed by John Ford (The Last Hurrah (1958), The Whole Town's Talking (1935), They Were Expendable (1945), The Lost Patrol (1934), and The Informer (1935)). He also appeared with Henry Fonda in the TV series "The Deputy," which ran from 1959 to 1960. Ford died of a heart attack soon after his last memorable role as "Old Pa" in the hit Sidney Poitier drama A Patch of Blue (1965).- Actor
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He was obviously handed one of those unique stage names, like Lash La Rue, in order for audiences (especially the kiddies) to immediately associate him with western heroics and the trademark he would be remembered for in films. Not one of the better remembered sagebrush heroes in today's world, Whip Wilson came along at the tail end of the huge western craze of the late 40s and early 50s and managed a three-year career at Monogram Pictures that encompassed about two dozen oaters.
Born with the more proper name of Roland Charles Meyers on June 16, 1911, in Granite, Illinois, he was one of eight children. A talented singer before going to Hollywood, he supposedly sang in a few pictures but was not considered or ever promoted as a "singing cowboy" per se. It was Scott R. Dunlap, a Monogram Pictures studio executive, who handed Whip his career on a silver platter. A close friend and business partner of the late western star Buck Jones, Dunlap had been searching for a replacement ever since Buck perished in the Boston Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in 1942. He was caught off guard when he met Whip, who happened to bear a strong resemblance to Jones. Dunlop excitedly signed him up despite having no prior experience. Cowboy star Lash La Rue had already displayed cowboy heroics cracking a bull whip so Dunlap decided to capitalize on the popular gimmick and handed Wilson a whip as well, grooming him into a combination of LaRue and Buck Jones.
To whip up (sorry) a bit of experience in front of the camera, Dunlap gave the movie tenderfoot a part in the Jimmy Wakely oater Silver Trails (1948). By the next year Whip was starring in his own tailor-made vehicles, the first being Crashing Thru (1949) as a white-hatted, white steed-mounting hero, accompanied by his very own sidekick in the form of veteran comic actor Andy Clyde. After about a dozen pictures, Clyde left the series and was replaced by Fuzzy Knight and/or Jim Bannon. Both blonde bombshell Reno Browne and dark-haired beauty Phyllis Coates served as frequent "prairie flower" co-stars in Whip's films. Browne was once married to cowboy actor LaRue and Coates was better known for playing Lois Lane on film and TV's Adventures of Superman (1952).
After only three years as a movie cowboy Whip rode off into the sunset after starring in the western programmer Wyoming Roundup (1952). He worked only one more time in the industry when he was hired to provide whip-wielding instructions to Burt Lancaster in a couple of scenes and also appeared unbilled in the western The Kentuckian (1955). He managed a Los Angeles apartment complex in later years. Whip died of a heart attack on October 22, 1964 at the relatively young age of 53, and was survived by third wife Monica. He had no children and was buried in his native state of Illinois.- Born Gordon Nance in 1904 on a farm in Pattonsburg, Missouri -- a small town about 60 miles northeast of Kansas City -- the future "Wild Bill Elliott" grew up around horses. His father was a commissioner at the Kansas City Stockyards. and at age 16 Elliott won a first-place ribbon in that city's annual "American Royal Horse and Livestock Show." After a move to California, he appeared in a few productions at the Pasadena Playhouse, where he was spotted by a talent scout. He made his first movie in 1925. A steady stream of movies followed, first silents and then talkies, in which he played too great a variety of roles to be "typed." In many of these movies he was billed as "Gordon Elliott." In 1938, however, Columbia cast him as the lead in its 15-chapter serial, The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1938), and Elliott's identification with westerns began. He even began to adopt the names "Bill" or "Wild Bill." He also became famous for using the line, "I'm a peaceable man ... " (which was inevitably followed by an outburst of violence). Elliott reached his peak of popularity at Columbia when he was teamed with Tex Ritter for a series of films. In 1943 he left Columbia for Republic, where his westerns had somewhat larger budgets. This was followed by a move to Monogram (later Allied Artists) in 1951. He was now back in low-budget B-westerns, the last one appearing in 1954. There followed five other B pictures in which he played a Los Angeles police detective. He filmed "pilots" for two potential TV series, "Marshal of Trail City" and "Parson of the West," but neither of them sold. His film career over, Elliott settled in Las Vegas where he hosted a weekly TV show in which he interviewed guests and showed some of his old movies. He also became a pitchman for a cigarette company. In 1961 his 34-year marriage to Helen Josephine Meyer ended and he took Dolly Moore as his second wife. He died of lung cancer in 1965 and is buried in Las Vegas at Palm Memorial Park.